Day Twenty Six
Rangely CO to Steamboat Springs CO
The bad:
- Some muther-effin’ graffiti on some of the landscape was one of the first things we saw when we pulled out of town. At least someone made it funny (and more truthful). Now, a scout group or something needs to come remove it altogether.
- More rudeness from a commercial driver. WTH dude passing us (with tons of room to do so) in a No Passing Zone! He laid on his horn while passing us, so E just did the same back to him. GTFO this planet! You don’t deserve to live among all this beauty if you are going to be mean. Waiting 30-seconds for a passing lane–and then passing safely and politely–isn’t going to kill you, “right” away. Y’all are spared from that shithead driver since the dash cam seems to have eaten that segment of footage.
The good:
- Along the way we saw tons of apiaries. There have been a lot on this whole journey. Seeing them makes me happy and hopeful. Also, it’s too bad the bees can’t carry wifi or cell signal.
- We had lunch by a shady tree.
- Once “here” we pulled into the wrong campground. But it had the most lovely patch of cattails we wouldn’t have seen otherwise.
- This campground is cute, so after we set up and rested a bit, we sat in the fancy chairs up front to watch the other Labor Day Weekend campers roll in. We also met a pair of the seasonal staffers here. They are from Hutto of all places. She even worked for the dealership where we bought our motorhome!
- There is a Crane Festival this weekend. How we find bird events without trying is just “uncanary” or something!
- We grabbed yummy chicken for dinner, went for a walk around our campground, set up the Starlink and our new propane fire pit, and–for the first time on this trip–enjoyed an evening outside. (Other nights we were out or it was too hot to be outside.)
Day Twenty Seven
Jeepin’ Around
We decide to drive north of Steamboat and see the things up there. The wide spot in the road known as Clark was hoppin’! The one place is a pizza food truck, outside deck, town post office, liquor store, small market, and deli cafe that has counter-service breakfast and lunch. Northeast of Clark, there is Routt National Forest land with a lot of off-grid camping spots. It’s mostly fishing based. There is also a lot of private land in the area, so it’s important to pay attention to the signs.
On our journey we saw more bluebirds. We also used our state parks pass to take a tour around Steamboat Lake State Park. It has one of the nicest (the nicest?) state park visitor centers we’d ever seen. If you are ever in Steamboat, it’s a pretty little drive and a must do.
While we were Jeepin’ Around, his Aggies won 31-0 and my ‘Canes won 70-13. Yay for a good start to the year for us both. Our teams play each other on Sept 17th.
For the evening, we headed to dinner at a sports bar and watched the rest of the college football games.
Day Twenty Eight
Jeepin’ Around
We drove over to the Steamboat ski area and go out and walked around some. It’s sparse at this time of year. Plus, they are doing a bunch of construction. We then went over to Oak Creek and happened upon their town’s Routt-y Fest/”Let’s Get Routt-y” but other than one cantina, the whole place was dead. Maybe they save the “rowdy” time for evening. On the way back we saw some more bluebirds, though. I’ll never tire of that.
Back at the campground, we had lunch, sat on the porch, and took a walk. We then headed back to the sports bar to watch FSU manage to beat LSU by one tiny point. The campground was super quiet even though we got back before quiet hours; we’re hoping that means they are all leaving in the morning. We have plans.
Day Twenty Nine – Labor Day
Having the windows open for a few evenings/nights has been nice! It’s been lovely to enjoy fresh air. As predicted, a lot of people are leaving the campground. Unfortunately, a few of them a pretty noisy about it. Don’t slam your doors, RVers. We spent our awake morning relaxing, doing small projects, gaming, and YouTubing. We grabbed tacos (the closest we’ve had to Tacodeli!!) for lunch in town and did some recycling. We then hit our appointment at one of the area’s Hot Springs. mmmm.
Day Thirty “for” Thirty
Steamboat Springs to Denver CO
Our last day of this adventure. After battling a small (and on their end) electrical problem, we finally rolled out at 11:30am.
- We left the dash cam in the motorhome, so video will be added later.
- The drive took us through Bunny Ears Pass and Muddy Pass and was quite pretty.
- We saw a herd of buffalo in a large corral.
- At one point, we were beside Green Mountain and the Blue River while in the White River National Forest.
- Colorado has a lot of road construction, and also has the second-to-Idaho worst road of the entire trip.
- Silverthorne and I-70 were packed with traffic (and some of that construction).
- Once we could “see” the Rockies, we were sad to see them in a shroud of smoke from all the wildfires.
- We heard from R&H that they will be in Colorado next summer, not far from us, so we are going to get to camp with them again!
- After we unpacked the motorhome, we stopped for dinner.
- At home, we went through two weeks worth of mail (remembered to vacation it half way through the trip!) and the few packages that had begun to arrive. We also spent some time with one of our overnight building staffers; catching up with him was great.